Dead Eyes
by Jane the Frog on the Wall
Summary: After "Last Call," Logan and Max are a happy couple once more. But Syl's a little bitter...Syl/Krit shippiness.


title: dead eyes  
series: sibling rivalry (05)  
by: jane, the frog on the wall  
rating: PG-13, nothing you wouldn't see on the show, methinks.   
spoilers: "and jesus brought a casserole"  
disclaimer: Once upon a time, there was a little girl. And she was verry little, and didn't know much about copyrights or complicated things with big words. And one day this little girl wrote a fic, using somebody else's characters, which was very illegal. But then she told people they weren't hers, in a disclaimer, and it was a little less illegal.   
notes: An interlude, comes right after "Last Call." Seeing Max and Logan all gooey makes Syl a little bitter...alternative shippiness. Yet again, sparked by Kate Bolin's BtVS Challenge-In-A-Can, Lindsey -- picture -- alive, modified for DA, of course.   
feedback: send all questions, comments, death threats and everything else concerning the fic should be sent to Happygirl_com@yahoo.com  
  
  
  
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She sighs, feels her heart beating just a little bit faster, her face just a little bit hotter, clangs her dishes together as she makes herself dinner. Downs the pasta slower than usual, *thinks* as she finishes the last beer in her apartment. She needs more. Needs to get drunk, hammer back more tequila than a normal person could survive, lose consciousness on a barstool. Grabs her coat, her wallet, thinking to head to Crash - no, not Crash. She'll be there, she'll be with him, she'll be happy. Going to Succubus, going somewhere with music that makes her eardrums vibrate for days afterward, so full of people dancing and discretely fucking each other in the darker corners and back rooms she can barely breathe.   
  
Screeches down the street, heading deeper into the neglected, broken-down heart of Seattle than Max would ever venture. Parks her bike, walks past the line and hands the bouncer a twenty on top of the cover charge, smiles to herself as he lets her in - a dead stretching of the lips, eyes cold and hard as ever. She takes a seat by the bar, corner seat with her back to the wall and a view of the door, a bad habit she picked up at Manticore. Orders drink number one, sighs at the comforting burn of alcohol sliding down her throat, sets the glass down onto the table and orders a second, because the night is still young.  
  
He shows up somewhere between barely standing and unconscious, takes her by the hand and half-carries her outside, always looking out for her. Helps her into her coat once they're outside, seats her behind him on her own bike, grabs her wrists with one hand to keep her with him. Then they're standing in her apartment, he's holding her up and she's too far gone to really know where she is. Slowly, carefully, he lifts her onto the bed, ignoring her mews of protest as he removes her coat, her shoes, her socks, places a glass of water beside her bed because in the morning, she'll want it. Lowers himself onto the couch in the next room, not minding that everything below his knees is hanging off the end, ignoring the scratch of cheap fabric and the interesting scents buried in the apholstery.   
  
+++  
  
When she wakes up, it's the same as usual. Curse her own stupidity, ignore the pounding in her skull, shower, wonder where she keeps the painkillers. She doesn't remember going home, doesn't remember much after the first seven drinks, but doesn't mind not having to deal with finding her way home from a nondescript alley downtown. She stumbles out of the bathroom, barely remembering to get dressed as she makes her way toward the kitchen.   
  
Mumbles a string of curses when she finds him there, flipping pancakes as he presses several pills into her hand, and shoves a glass of water along the counter. She swallows the pills without looking at them, downs the water in one gulp, and starts eating like she's been starved for a month. After her fourth pancake, she realizes he hasn't left and sighs. "Did I sleep with you last night?"  
  
He smiles, finishes chewing, and shakes his head. "No, no. You, ah..." he clears his throat, voice slightly shaky despite his best efforts. "...you didn't show up at Crash last night, so I thought I'd go find you."  
  
The question he hasn't spoken is hanging between them, swinging from look to meaningful look with ease.   
  
/: Why? Why weren't you there, why did you leave me alone... :/  
  
/: Why do you care? :/  
  
There's an awkward silence - he doesn't want to ask, she doesn't want to answer...gives him a jaded look and runs a hand through her hair. "Funny thing...the drunker you get, the easier it is to forget that nobody wants you."  
  
Oh. Oh, god, that's it, then. He smiles at her...almost patronizing, fatherly and understanding and something she won't acknowledge. His dark eyes are almost black, focussing straight on her as he reaches a calloused palm toward her. Her tiny hands, chewed nails and scraped knuckles disappear in his, she looks up at him. Her face is closed, her cynic's eyes like ice as she cuts him off before he can finish her name. "Don't you *dare* say that." She's standing now, sparks coming off her in waves, yet she still lets him keep her hands in his. "Don't you ever "Syl" me, big brother, I am *not* Syl. I'm not your little sister, or your kitten. I'm a freak. I'm a disgusting, genetically modified freak, I don't even know half of what I've got in me, and I expect to date a person."  
  
He releases her hands, moves around the counter to push away the hair falling past her shoulders, hiding her face. Smiles as she shakes it back down, bends to make eye contact. "No, Kitten, no..."   
  
The nickname makes her flinch, she pulls away from him and glares. "Yeah, you've got that part down. Think I could date a cat? How'd that work, huh? Feeding each other dead mice, chase some yarn or something, right? Or what about a possum? Think we could make that work, hanging from trees in the dark? Or...ooh, antelope." She turns her head to the side, gives him a mock-thoughtful glance. "That might actually work. I mean, at least we're around the same size. I can't really see myself fucking one, but lots of crusty, bitter women die virgins. I've got a leg up on them, at least."  
  
"Syl. Shut up."  
  
His voice is strong, commanding her to listen. And standing in the sparsely furnished apartment, still far too short, she's back at Manticore listening to a superior. She shuts up, closes her mouth, looks up at him with fury crackling in her eyes. He laughs at her, softly, and she's tempted to try throwing him into a wall. But she hears the kindness in his voice, relaxes the defensive stance she doesn't remember taking. He puts a hand on her shoulder, wants to coax her out of the bitter shell she's taken to wearing, ever since they got Logan back. "Kitten...smile for me?" She raises an eyebrow, implies that there is a limit to what she'll do for him. "Please?"  
  
She obliges - her mouth curves upward, shows white teeth, chapped lips. But her eyes...her eyes are dead, cold and angry, stubbornly refusing to reflect the rest of her face. She sighs when his face falls, and starts to clean up the used plates littered around the room. He waits for two full minutes, counting his breaths and watching her savage motions as she tries to stop herself from smashing the plates she's scrubbing. "You know," he says, covering the distance between them in two quick steps, "If you keep doing that, you're going to break them."  
  
She turns around, suddenly much too close to him, suddenly not minding. He arches his eyebrows, gives her a lopsided half-smile, straightens his back. She mumbles something under her breath, something profane along the lines of "what the hell," and kisses his mouth. He returns the sentiment, tangles his hands in her hair. She tastes like syrup and cinnamon and something uniquely Syl, like rainclouds. He smells like sweat and pancakes and fruit juice, laced with something something spicy and uniquely *him,* impossible to pin down. It occurs to her that her toes hurt from holding her weight, her hands have found their way around his back, onto his shoulderblades, she feels a little lightheaded from lack of oxygen. She slowly breaks away, looks up at him, colours slightly. One rough palm is resting on her cheek, and he smiles at her. "Think you can take me over the antelope?"  
  
+++  
  
On the couch, three in the morning, too tired to go to bed, too comfortable to move as she rests her head on his chest. And there's this picture in her head, of sitting alone drinking herself sick, crawling up the walls with lust, finding the clothes she discarded throughout Donny-James-Ian-Mark's apartment, feeling the hungry stares as she prowls through shady clubs after midnight. And she feels his hot breath against her scalp, the rough skin of his hands as they run across the taut skin of her belly, and feels so real, so utterly *alive* it's almost stifling. And slowly, carefully, she smiles. But this time, it reaches her eyes.   
  
+++  
  
[[[End]]] 


End file.
